Cat shelter auction in Sylva

Catman2 will host “The Cat’s Meow Auction” at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

The largest no-kill, cats-only shelter and adoption center in Western North Carolina, Catman2 seeks donations from local businesses and individuals to help raise money for the ever-rising cost of caring for nearly 100 homeless cats. All donations are tax-deductible. A list of items for auction and advertisements are at www.catman2.org.

Reading Room

Like some other readers I know, my taste in books these last 20 years or so has shifted from fiction to non-fiction, especially history, biography, and literary studies. I still follow certain novelists — Anne Tyler, Pat Conroy, James Lee Burke, and others — and still review novels for this paper, but find that works of fiction simply don’t appeal as much as when I was in my twenties and thirties, when I read stacks of novels and poetry.